preserve cherries in alcohol...that will be much more fun.

On our back from the Marina on Saturday we popped into the grown-ups DIY store in Cherbourg. We feel really cheated not having a super dooper B&Q type store with keen deals and choice in Carentan, so any opportunity to pop in and have a look makes our day...how very sad. We did however pick up two blinds for the boat, 2 Euros each, and 10 square meters of carpet floor tiles to replace the plastic lining in Beema for a Euro a square meter...gooood deal. We have been looking for a wall light to go over our new doorway and we found one of those as well and Mike has spent the past three days installing it. When the light goes on in the lounge the light goes on in the court yard...cool, and a bit changing rooms for this old house but cool all the same.

Sarah held a summer party in her garden with Traditional English Tea and we ate cucumber sandwiches, bread from Tesco, cake and scones, she raised five hundred Euro for her church restoration fund and when we popped in on Monday I picked up all the left overs and have a freezer full of Tesco soft cut loaves, cake and scones, and 5 cucumbers, but not in the freezer ! I feel I did better than the Church and we will not need to buy bread until September.

On my evening walk yesterday I noticed that the cherry tree was, full of cherries. In the three years we have been here we have rarely seen cherries in time to pick before the birds whip them away so today I commandeered the cherry picker, that will be Mike, and we set off to see what we could harvest. I was gobsmacked with the sheer volume of our crop this year. What a perfect scene, Mike up the tree picking, me sitting on the in the grass sorting and packing, HOSS playing around us without a care in the world, there was not a sound that nature hadn't invented herself and as our basket filled and our tummies filled I started to regret ever getting involved as a full basket of anything means time in the kitchen. We finally threw in the towel when I couldn't fit another cherry in. Over lunch we got our books out to see what you are suppose to do with a glut like this. I then spent the rest of the day bottling and jamming, but I still have three huge bowls to deal with tomorrow. Not a problem I think the jam is yummy so we will go down that route. Next year I will get the red currents in a little quicker and bottle the cherries in current juice and I will look up to see if you can preserve cherries in alcohol...that will be much more fun.